Moscow - 18th May

MOSCOW

 

Amy and I didn’t wake up until after 8am, showered and had breakfast in the room.

Let’s get going and head to the metro to start the Hop on Hop off bus tour!

 

Getting tickets for the metro and the woman behind the counter doesn’t speak any English, we’ve done well so far, good teamwork!

 

WOW this has got to be the highest, longest and scariest escalator we have ever been on, Amy has gone quiet, no likey I think!!!  Wow the underground is seriously underground!

 

That was a bit tricky turning round to get the photo of Colly, think he is scared!!!

 

The escalator looking up the way, wow!

 

It is beautiful this metro station, way down in the depths of the earth!

 

The ceiling in the metro with loads of different paintings!

 

and statues but there just never is a minute or even a second when no-one is walking by them!

 

Ok it is this way, funny the metro map has English and Russian name of stops but in the metro it only has Russian, think we are doing okay so far we’ll see if we get to where we need to be!!

 

The metro we need to get on, excited faces!

 

Colin likes this lamp!!  Maybe it is home furnishings that Col is missing he has been eyeing up vases and lamps over the past week?!?!?  He'll soon be sick of furniture etc once I start trailing him round all the furniture stores in Australia, ooooohhhhhh how exciting!!!!! 

 

Another beautiful painting on the ceiling!

 

Hold on we are going back up the escalator to get out onto the street!

 

Our first view out of the metro, a beautiful fountain

 

And across the road is wow this absolutely stunning church

 

We head towards the gallery and this is the fountain just outside it, pretty cool and very apt!

 

The gallery, we didn’t go in as we have bigger and better things to go and see!  And we are all painted out after the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg!!

 

Oh yeah we can see where we are heading now!  Across the bridge which is known as ‘Kissing Bridge’ tradition is that newlyweds go to the bridge and put a padlock on the tree and supposed to bring them eternal love XXX

 

 

One of the metal trees with padlocks on, kissy kissy xx

 

View along the canal, manmade canal to prevent Moscow flooding

 

 

Here is us going to get our tickets for the Hop on Hop off bus, a few ‘lost in translation’ moments but hey we got there and we now have tickets for the bus, let’s go and hop on!

 

Udarnik Cinema with the dome that can opened to have open air cinema screenings

 

 

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour which our Hop on bus was supposed to go by but think the driver just missed out stop number 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and took us from 2 to 8 there was nothing much on those stops so didn’t miss much but not the point really!

 

Moscow in Russian in flowers

 

Pretty in flowers and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

 

The library, it would defo encourage you to read walking into this building

 

Wow part of the walls to the Kremlin and the Historical Museum

 

Here is the hotel now the Four Seasons Hotel that the architect designed and sent it to Stalin to sign off to authorise to build it.  But the architect had sent it with two different facades for Stalin to choose but Stalin signed in the middle of the building to authorise to build it.  The architect didn’t know which façade to choose so the hotel was built with the two different facades only few differences!

 

Historical Museum

 

The statue of Karl Marx, famous Communist where demonstrations take place to this day

 

Bolshoy Theatre where Apollo statue is on top of theatre.  On the bus tour is says Apollo driving the horses is the only sober taxi driver around in Moscow, eeeek glad we didn't hear that yesterday after our taxi experience!!!!

 

 

 

Former KGB headquarters

 

Just have no clue what that sign says at all!!

 

Gum shopping mall on Red Square, next to the Kremlin

 

WOW now that is a beautiful sight to see when we turned round the corner

 

1.15pm where has this morning gone already!

 

WOW St Basil's Cathedral xx

 

 

The colours are so vibrant it is absolutely stunning!

 

A lady painting and having a moment to see where the next paint brush stroke goes, beautiful!

 

Down the River Moscow and along the Kremlin walls

 

 

The girls on the bus

 

Stop for a play on a roundabout

 

That’s where we are heading too, can’t wait!

 

Across the bridge and we will be there!!

 

The Grand Kremlin Palace from the bridge

 

Walking through the gardens to get to the Kremlin

 

The Borovitskaya Tower and entrance

 

The big queue for tickets for the Kremlin, hopefully it will be well worth the wait!!  And the queue we were in we got to two behind and the lady closed her blind and went for lunch!!!  Oh boy then we just slid into the next line and got the tickets eventually!!  It better be worth it!!

 

It’s hot today, supposed to be 27degrees C, who would have thought that Moscow would be our hottest destination so far on our travels!!

 

We’ve got the tickets, dropped off rucksack at baggage drop as you are allowed small handbags but no rucksacks allowed inside the Kremlin.  We are through security,

 now let’s go and investigate!

 

Two guards on duty and the sun is shining right into their faces, hope they have sun screen on!!

 

Amy said ‘I don’t think they would be allowed to wear sunglasses??’  Ha ha no I don’t think that would be part of their uniform!!!

 

Wow loads of cannons!!

 

The State Kremlin Palace

 

WOW what a backdrop!

 

So I crossed the road and thought we would go and see the other cannons on the other side of the road but boy the police man blew his whistle loudly, shouted in Russian?? and waved his truncheon for us to get on the pelican crossing and don’t go near the cannons on the other side of the road!!!  Naughty girl!!!

 

Great balls of fire!!  That is some size of cannon – Tsar Cannon casted in 1586 and weighs 40 ton, wowcha!

 

The Assumption Cathedral

 

Tsar Bell cast in 1733-1735 – height 6.14m, diameter 6.6m and weighs 200 tons

 

 

Ivan the Terrible (or in our other map it says Ivan the Great) Bell-Tower you better keep walking you two before we get whistled at again, police are everywhere whistling and keeping everyone in check!!

 

Tsar Bell in front and the size of the bell in the Bell-tower looks massive too

 

 

The secret gardens at the Kremlin with absolutely stunning tulips

 

So many different colours of tulips it is beautiful

 

Stopped for snack in the shade!

 

Since the young guy landed his aeroplane in Red Square air space has been suspended and only Putin is allowed to fly in and out of Kremlin using Moscow air space.  He flies in to the Kremlin in his helicopter as he doesn’t like sitting in traffic!

 

 

 

One of the Kremlin towers and one of the seven Stallin buildings

 

Next we went around all the churches in the Kremlin grounds. 

You were allowed to go in and visit them but sorry no photos!

 

The Archangel’s cathedral -  Ivan the terrible ordered this church to be built and now Ivan and his sons have their tombs inside a vault behind the altar which is a shame as we couldn’t see it.  The foundations for the church were laid in 1333.  Ivan the terrible ordered frescoes to be painted in 1564-1565, amazing how the colours are still vibrant!

 

 

The Annunciation Cathedral – The Iconostasis is one of the oldest in Russia, it was absolutely beautiful with its gold and almost one hundred icons.  The central dome was amazing with paintings all around

 

Another view of Ivan the Terrible’s Bell Tower

 

The Assumption Cathedral – there were round pillars in this cathedral all with paintings all the way around them and a few beautiful shrines dates ranging from 1585-1819, amazing the age of the shrines

 

 

 

The side entrance to the Assumption Cathedral

 

Beautiful domes shining in the sunlight

 

The last church we went into was the Church of the Deposition of the Robe of the Holy Virgin of the Moscow Kremlin.  We were all kind of ‘churched’ out at this point so we scooted around this one!

 

 

Another one of the towers of the Kremlin, didn’t realise they all had names too.  We were heading towards the Grand Palace as Amy wanted to go in but the place was surrounded by police and certainly if we wanted to go in we wouldn’t be going in alive ha ha!! 

 

That is us heading out of the Kremlin there is nowhere left to visit and we have spent about 3 hours in there.  We were surprised what was inside the Kremlin walls not sure what we were expecting but certainly not all the churches and buildings inside!

 

Heading down into the park next once we have collected our rucksack

 

6 lane traffic going whizzing by!!

 

Amy has spied a fountain in front of them with really tall jets of water so they are off to investigate!

 

Pretty cool water fountain you spied Amy!!

 

The lilac trees are absolutely beautiful in bloom

 

People dressed up, not sure why but we were close to the theatre, maybe?

 

The water section of this park goes on for ages and a few people paddling as temperate was forecast for 27degrees C!

 

So we spy a McDonald’s which we could only recognise from the yellow M as the word means nothing and doesn’t even resemble McDonalds on the canopy!  No English spoken so heaven help us but then they give us a picture card with English on it, woop woop we are sorted!!!  The hero bringing back our food, yummy!!!  Atleast we know what we are eating!!

 

We find a nice shaded area in the park next to the water features to eat our very late lunch/tea.  We had just finished our food when there were loud whistles, what is it with the whistles??   Here were 3 police this time moving people off the grass.  There was a sign on the other side of the gardens saying Please keep off grass but there were about 60 odd people sitting down so we decided majority rules well that was until the police came!!  Oh dear second whistle of the day.  The police all walk around with truncheons and look so MEAN!!  We just ain’t messing with them!! 

 

Whilst we were getting moved off the grass we could see the changing of the guards ceremony which wasn’t very grand at all they walked in, changed places and walked off.  Not sure what else we were expecting but they change places every hour. 

 

We were thinking that the flame in the middle of the picture was for all lives lost in the World War but we didn’t know as the plaque was in Russian funnily enough but had dates 1941-1945!!!

 

Another tower of the Kremlin

 

The guy standing under the statue is very passionate about something just not sure what because guess what he was speaking in Russian, funny that!  He had gathered a crowd so it must have been worth listening to and he had a police man and a camera on him so must have been important?!?!?

 

The Historical Museum

 

Museum of the war

 

Off to have a look around the market stalls

 

Nearly all the market stalls had similar stock, Amy and I loved looking at all the Russian Dolls

 

And just beside the market stalls are all the police and we saw some army guys walking through the market too.

 

Here we are back to the Bolshoy Theatre and now we need to cross the road!!  Everything is very well organised the pedestrian lights have timers on them so you know how long you have left to wait and on big roads they have underground walkways!

 

The government building

 

Here we go again down the largest, tallest, highest escalator to get down to the metro!

 

 

Absolutely beautiful metro building, that is us home and off to bed that has been a very long, exciting but tiring day!  Tomorrow we have St Basil’s cathedral and Red Square to go too, exciting!!  And think the forecast is for sun again and hotter than today Bo)